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The Revolutionary Kim Chaek

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The Revolutionary Kim Chaek REMINISCENCES TThhee RReevvoolluuttiioonnaarryy KKiimm CChhaaeekk From "With the Century" , Vol.8 KIM IL SUNG "In the Kumsusan Assembly Hall there was a safe used by the leader. No one, including his aides, knew what he kept in the safe. "After his death we wanted to open it but we could not find the key. Some days ago we found the key and opened the safe to find... a photo of him posing with Comrade Kim Chaek. "He usually kept all his photos in the Party History Institute. But he was keeping in his safe a photo he had had taken with Comrade Kim Chaek. This shows how dearly he cherished the memory of his comrade-in-arms Kim Chaek." To be immortal in the memory of his leader － this is the greatest glory a man can win in his lifetime and the greatest happiness a revolutionary can feel. Kim Chaek was the loyalist of loyalists, standing on the peak of such glory and happiness. How could he live for ever in the memory of his leader? I met Kim Chaek for the first time at the conference the Comintern convoked in Khabarovsk. I also met Choe Yong Gon there. For this I will never forget Khabarovsk. Kim Chaek was representing the North Manchuria Provincial Party Committee and the 3rd Route Army of the Northeast Anti-Japanese Allied Army (NAJAA) at the meeting. As we stayed there for several months, not just a day or two, Kim Chaek and I frequently met each other. I shared board and lodging with An Kil and So Chol, and Kim Chaek would visit us and talk with us for a few hours before returning to his lodgings. I was so impressed by my meetings with him that I still vividly remember the very first meeting. He had a calm demeanour, and he was going bald even though he was not yet 40. Strangely enough, even though I had not met him before, I had the strong feeling that he was an old friend of mine. I think it was because I had heard so much about him and had looked forward to seeing him. After the usual exchange of greetings, I told him I felt that he was an old friend in spite of the fact that it was our first meeting. Kim Chaek replied that he also felt that Kim Il Sung was not in the least a new acquaintance. 1 The fact that Kim Chaek and I felt that way means we thought about, and missed, each other equally. I had wanted to meet Kim Chaek and Choe Yong Gon so much that I had made special trips to northern Manchuria. Kim Chaek wanted to see me so much that he had visited Jilin in 1930. Choe Yong Gon yearned for a joint struggle with me so much that he had dispatched a liaison man to Jiandao four times. Whether the theatre of our struggle was northern Manchuria or eastern Manchuria, we all thought at that time about the Korean revolution and never forgot that we were Koreans, revolutionaries and sons of Korea, who should devote their life to the liberation of their motherland irrespective of organization affiliation and theatres of struggle. This community of like minds can be said to have made the Korean revolutionaries in eastern and northern Manchuria continually miss and long for each other. Why did Kim Chaek and Choe Yong Gon cast a covetous glance all the more at eastern Manchuria? It was precisely because they missed Koreans. While the 2nd Corps in eastern Manchuria was composed exclusively of Koreans, Chinese were in the majority in the 3rd and 7th Corps. Living among the Chinese whose language and customs were different from theirs, they could not but grow envious of eastern Manchuria, where hundreds of thousands of Koreans swarmed, and miss our units where Koreans were in the majority. "Why did it take so long to meet Commander Kim?" Kim Chaek muttered to himself after we had exchanged greetings at our first meeting. I did not know why, but his soliloquy went straight to my heart. He did not let go of my hands for a long time, even after we had greeted each other. I looked at him, and saw that tears were brimming in his eyes. For a man of few words to show tears, how sorely must he have missed the Koreans in Jiandao and the units of Koreans? That day I also shed tears. Immediately after Korea was seized by the Japanese, Kim Chaek's father moved to Jiandao with his family. He had probably heard that Jiandao was a fertile land where a farmer could make a good living. The Haksong area, where they came from, was also fertile. But they could not escape poverty in their native land, however diligently they farmed. Who does not cherish his native land? But people joined the northward exodus one after another to eke out a living. Kim Chaek's parents thought that once they were in Jiandao, their troubles would be over. As they had three sons, they did not worry about labour. Nevertheless, the sons whom they had pinned such great hopes on abandoned the household and joined the revolution. It was Kim Chaek's elder brother. Kim Hong Son, who let the wind of revolution into 2 this household. During the March First Popular Uprising he cheered for independence on the street, fought it the Battle of Quingshanli as a soldier of the Independence Army and joined the communist movement. In the Tonghung Middle School in Longjing, where he was a teacher, there were many students who had come from Russia. He was apparently introduced to the socialist ideology during contacts with these students. He worked as a district committee member of the Communist Party in Ningan County before being assassinated. Kim Chaek's younger brother was also a prominent revolutionary. Kim Chaek told me that he had once come across an article in a newspaper about his younger brother being held in Seoul's Sodaemun Prison, but that he did not know what became of him later. While tending the fields by day, Kim Chaek diligently attended night school. At that time he threw himself into the revolutionary movement. The organization he first affiliated himself with was the General Federation of Korean Youth in Eastern Manchuria (GFKYEM). Subsequently he was admitted to the Korean Communist Party. The Party cell he belonged to was under the influence of the Tuesday group. Though he knew that the Korean Communist Party which had been organized in 1925 had been disbanded owing to factional strife, he did not hide the fact that he had been a member of a cell of that Party. In those days there were two general bureaus of political groups in Manchuria, one being the general bureau of the Korean Communist Party, controlled by the Tuesday group, and the other being the general bureau of the M-L group, formed in opposition to the former. Learning the inside story of factional strife filled with feuds for hegemony, Kim Chaek felt disillusioned with the hierarchy of the Communist Party. A turning point in his thinking came about at this time. Writhing in mental agony over the debacle in the communist movement resulting from factional strife, he heard the news that the Comintern had disbanded the Korean Communist Party while he was languishing in a prison cell. Though the Party had been stained with factional strife, its disbandment rent his heart. Then, which path should Korean communists follow from then on? And what should I do? Kim Chaek thought when in prison and out of it, he told me. He could do nothing by relying on the existing generation of Party members, but there seemed to be no new force that could replace them. However hard he thought, the way ahead was bleak. In these circumstances, not knowing which way to turn and penniless, he decided to say thanks to his benefactor Mr. Ho Hon. When Kim Chaek had faced trial, Ho Hon had defended him in the court. From the outset Kim Chaek had not asked for a lawyer. He had neither money to engage a lawyer nor did he want someone to speak for him. Then Ho Hon had volunteered to plead for him free of charge. This lawyer had undertaken to defend many 3 revolutionaries and independence fighters in court, getting them released or their sentences reduced. Kim Chaek stayed at Ho Hon's house for some days. When he was leaving Seoul, Ho Hon gave him an overcoat and travel expenses. With the 3 or 4 won he bought the train ticket and meals on the way. The two men established relationship in this way. It was out of pure patriotism that Ho Hon defended Kim Chaek in the court. He did it free of charge as he was mortified to see a Korean patriot facing a penalty for doing what he, as a Korean, ought to do. Sympathy, solidarity and the obligation of an elder patriot―three feelings influenced him, I would say. All considered, Mr. Ho Hon was truly an excellent man. After liberation, when Kim Chaek was Vice-Premier and concurrently Minister of Industry in the Cabinet, Ho Hon served as the first Speaker of the Supreme People's Assembly. How strange their relationship was, as a man who had stood in the dock in the past and a man who had spoken in defence of him became senior cadres of a state! The day he was appointed Vice-Premier, Kim Chaek said to Ho Hon: "In the bygone days, sir, you spoke for me in the court; now you have the duty to criticize me.
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